Old shallow well silted in

[Greyhorse]

Anyone ever tried to clean out a shallow well? I have one in my yard that I know had water in it 15-20 years ago but it is now silted in because the casing was broken off just below the ground level and it has slowly filled in, it"s 11 feet deep now and dry. Casing is clay pipe so I figure it"s pretty old and was here when the first house was built here, first map of the area shows a house in 1870. I have the upper part of the casing and can probably glue or cement it on ok but I would like to try to get it working and use it to water the lawn if possible, if not I"ll probably just cap it off. Guess my question is what do I do? I was thinking of a dirty water pump in the well, like the kind you get at harbor freight, and trying to break the silt up with a pipe attached to a water hose and just shoving it down the well and letting the pump pump it out. Any ideas, suggestions?

 

[Dick K]

When I used to replace my point everv 3 years (pre- deep well I would pull a lot of sand and junk up with the point. I used a garden hose all the way down to the dirt, 45 ft and raised and lowered the hose rapidly to pump the dirt out. New it was clear when it would not pump any more water up and out.
Good luck

 

[Anonymous-0]

Might work, nothing to lose.

 

[Greyhorse]

Forgot to mention that the casing is over 8", probably 8.25" id.

 

[Anonymous-0]

You'll have to hope the casing isn't all messed up even further down. For real simple work, try to bail the well with a line and short piece of pipe. Maybe 3' or 4' about 2" diameter or less. Drop the pipe on the line and pound the pipe up and down to pack sand into it. If the sand will stay in the pipe you can bail it this way but it could take some time. Just keep cleaning the pipe out and make run after run. You could also try and wash the sand out with tubing but you'll need a good supply of water or a pit to reciculte into. If it isn't too deep a trash pump just might work at this.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The thing to do, is to make friends with a contractor, who has one of those sewer-sucker trucks. Not a septic contractor, one of the trucks, that cities use to clean clogs out of jammed up culverts, and storm sewers. These things have a huge motor running a big vaccuum, that fills up a 500-100gallon tank, that has a big door, on the back. They also have a tank of clean water, on the truck, and high pressure washers, to squirt same on silt and dirt, to make it into a slurry. One hose goes into the hole, liquifies the sediment, big sucker hose sucks it up, into the tank, when tank is full, it's dumped, till you hit H2O. DO NOT try to get county, or municipal approval, just do it. DO pay the guy cash, that truck is expensive!

 

[Gchase24]

Take a water hose run water in for a few minutes. Pull it out an lower an air hose and blow it for an hour or two.Then pump it out. Repeat several times. Worked for me when I revalitized an old well still in use today.

 

[jackinok]

bailer is what you need if you could find one some where.basically a tube with a flapper on one end drop it in and flapper opens,pull it out and flapper closes.bail the mud out,let it settle and bail it again.lots of names depending on where you are,well bucket,bailer ,mud bucket etc.most of them are galvanized with a loop on top for a rope and a flapper on bottom.either three or four inches around.probably make one easily out of plastic pipe if you could figure out how to hinge flapper,and had a seat for it to seal against.most well drillers ive seen the last few years blow them out with air now instead of bailing,but i dont know how that would work if you have solid silt in the bottom.back when we drilled with cable tools everyone bailed them with a bucket.Do a search on the net for "pumping water with air" might pick up some info there that would help.